Slasher

And as far as Bray Wyatt is concerned, he is still one of the chosen ones for the next era. He is always going to get the plum spots as well as guys like Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins would. So he was pretty much gonna get a crack at a guy like Brock eventually anyways. They gave him Undertaker at Mania already so....yeah.

Why would Brock care? Even if we put aside the CTC aspect of it, it isn't like Brock has a list of people he wants to work with. He isn't really a wrestling fan (at least not WWE). It isn't like Brock thinks to himself "Man I really hope I get to work with Daniel Bryan. The match would be really exciting for the fans!" He will wrestle anybody that they put in front of him and then tell them to leave him alone for a few months so he can shoot squirrels.

I don't think I am necessarily making a counterpoint or even an attempt of one. Of course Bret has a giant ego but there isn't much of a difference between Bret thinking he knows best compared to wanting to work with people that would give him the certain respect to let him control the match because "he knows best".

Wasn't paying that closely of attention to the specific thread topic. However it is just how they were booked in general. They got to look as dominant as they did for over a year in a landscape where the WWE can't help but rush to make sure 50-50 parity booking is involved. Then there are a few good storylines that involved them. Maybe not so directly in your face as most great angles often do when unfolding. They were interesting when they debuted and it seemed like they were the hounds in the shadows doing the evil champion CM Punk's bidding despite his denying it. They were interesting when they became the go to weapon of the Authority and being their tool to try to take down the Rhodes and leading to that pairing becoming so popular. Their stuff with the Wyatts and the teased breakups before reaffirming their union in a babyface turn that went over so well. So yeah there isn't the big moments where the Shield directly created something in a promo or angle but if you took a step back and looked at the whole picture, The Shield was awesome and definitely one of the WWE's best creative efforts in this century.

Most everything involving the Shield as a stable.

Two things- 1. To Sidebottom, I don't think Bret had bad offense or anything like that. He has always been my favorite of "technical" wrestlers that have come through history. i am one of those few who would happily watch him work than Ric Flair. My thinking though is when I think of high end offense there are few different ways to have it. You can be a guy who leaves his feet often or fly around or just having a lot of athletic spots in your repertoire. Or you can be a guy who can throw people around in suplexes and tosses with amazing power. Or you can be a vicious mat worker who likes to hear the crack of bones in every possible skeletal joint in your opponent's body. You can be a guy who eats people alive by cutting their space with battering attacks. But Bret doesn't really do any of that. Foley is a guy who shines in matches with people who can do any of those things because he knows how to make it look extra visually appealing. Bret works a match where you can almost see that he is the tortoise in a race against a hare and working steadily to the point the bell rings and it is over. He breaks people down in a crisp and proficient manner but it's not that visually impressive. He isn't a Michael Jordan with a wagging tongue scoring in amazing ways and making people go nuts. He is more like a John Stockton. He just plays his game and you don't realize how good he is until you look at the box score. That's not a good Foley foil. 2. I think the bigger aspect of Bret preferring to work the luggages of the professional wrestling world is that it's not just about him getting his ego stroked for carrying people. It is more that Bret prefers people who respects him so much they let him have the match he wants. He doesn't like to be told by Ric Flair that he has to let him do Flair flops in points of a match that Bret disagrees with timing of. He almost craves total autonomy over his match planning. Lugs let him do it so he likes it.

Which he hasn't in 10 years....why would he now? Angle has pretty much made it clear since 2008 or even earlier he was game for a return so it's not like it is a desire to stay in TNA that's kept him away for so long. Vince can obviously overrule Triple H on things but Kurt Angle I don't think is gonna be one of them. I was responding to your point that HHH is the reason he isn't back. Meltzer recently said on a podcast that Vince doesn't want Angle back. This was after I posted this. Obviously the actions or lack thereof has indicated as much but I'm surprised it is definitive enough that Dave stated it. I did think the situation was Vince didn't have any use for Angle but that it is Triple H who is driving the idea that he was to never come back. I didn't know Vince felt as strongly about it as he apparently does. So okay I concede it is a Vince thing, not just a Triple H thing.

Im really not trying to be antagonistic but Im just not interested in that talk. But obviously thats just me and Im not the boss here.

I disagree. It isn't even about the trilogy. It is about top 100 matches per poster. Why reduce the thread into another wank about Flair/Steamboat? Make a thread if that question really perplexes you.

See, it's meant to be a conversation starter not ender. In practice all it ever does is shut down discourse, analysis and reasoning. At the very least it should be possible to go into what strokes appeal to what folks. So make a thread. This isn't really the place for THAT conversation.

I thought that it would have been if Stone Cold didn't go down in 1999? It seemed like after the whole Who Ran Over Austin storyline winded down they jumped too easily into a match with the Rock like it was the plan over a year in the making.

Stone Cold vs Rock?

It has happened a few times but it's not exactly a trend or even a "standard operating procedure". Hulk vs Rock was to put over Rock's heel persona and further Hulk's match with Vince. If they do Brock vs Reigns that would pretty much be like the second ever time they did it (not counting Andre vs Hogan).

Which he hasn't in 10 years....why would he now? Angle has pretty much made it clear since 2008 or even earlier he was game for a return so it's not like it is a desire to stay in TNA that's kept him away for so long. Vince can obviously overrule Triple H on things but Kurt Angle I don't think is gonna be one of them.

Why are people bringing up Angle again? He is on Triple H's shit list. If he wields the amount of power people seem to think he has, you can bank on Angle never getting anywhere close to a WWE ring without buying a ticket. Kurt Angle tried to go around Triple H directly to Vince aftwr Hunter turned him down. Triple H never got over that. So add that to the typical concerns about his health and drug issues and you've got a guy the WWE isn't going anywhere close to.

There is a major difference between how they book their male midcarders and how they book women. Its one midcarder vs an entire division. They have rules for hoe they treat divisions. On an individual level yeah they don't know what to do.

That doesn't really go against what I'm saying, they book them this way because they put little thought into the divas so little that I suspect there is no directive at all let alone one that states "They are all catty chicks". Erratic and senseless booking comes with the territory when everything is left up to the last minute and not thought out long term. Look at the men they are at times just as jealous and conniving to each other with little in the way of back story or set up the women are just more so because Vince doesn't see them or didn't see them as an important part of his show. But that is what I am saying. It IS deliberate. Kevin Dunn doesn't like to have strong virtuous women characters because that isn't anybody he knows. He only knows what he is around in the WWE with them hiring models to boost morale in the men's locker room, he sees the competition of the women over the one or two plum spots on the roster reaching catty levels ridiculous (just look at how Eva Marie is being pushed). The ONLY woman in wrestling right now that has some handling with respect is Bayley and that is probably gonna be changed shortly after she gets called up. It is true that they spend less time thinking about women than they do men, but the time they do spend on the women, it's all deliberate.

Wrestling has taught us to never say never but we don't know Triple H's ability to put personal issues aside for business is. I think Vince will be gone by the time Punk is ready to get over it and considering Triple H and Stephanie hates CM Punk for what he's said in the past in that Colt Cabana podcast, I don't know if it'll happen.

Isn't he injured? He is under contract with UFC anyways. If Dana isn't letting Rousey do a creampuff match with Stephanie at Wrestlemania he's definitely not letting Punk do a match either. As if Punk would want to anyways...

No it really is a directive. It's been said for years that the WWE sees women as overly illogical and hormone crazed or just plain catty/bitchy even as a babyface. They think it is an accurate representation of women to book them as people who are always looking for ways to backstab each other or to be jealous of each other. The fact they book Nikki Bella bears all that out.

Not that the WWE would do it but IIRC Jericho was one of the guys Undertaker wanted to work a Wrestlemania with when he started to feel like he had to start producing good matches instead of his formerly typical diet of monsters. Undertaker is too old to go back to the monster match because he isn't going to be able to lift them with any consistency but I think his focus should be a spectacle match instead of "show stealer" like he was doing the last 10 years.

Even if Triple H was more "worker friendly" a boss, I am sure he would think that because he had to wrestle the insane schedule for years that today's workers just gotta suck it up and deal with it too.

If Taker stays involved with WWE after he officially retires, it would most likely be in a backstage role rather than on camera. Perhaps a guy who works a bit at the Performance Center or someone who does some work with creative or maybe serve as an ambassador of some kind. He probably would retain his character the few times he comes back on camera (saving someone from a horrible fate or intimidate a heel) would most likely be used to push things along or add gravity to the angle.

To honor one of his most loyal top guys and one that have effectively led the locker room for two decades? I wouldn't be surprised if Vince fell ass backward into having a guy with such a streak. But yeah it was obvious that thry reached a point where they were going "Ok this was cool but enough is enough".

It's not like anyone expects Sami Zayn to get called up as a guy who is an offensive dynamo that invokes fear in his opponents. Zayn plays an underdog in NXT and will most certainly be an underdog when called up and he has the right charisma to make it work. I think Bayley falls in the same category but I am not sure if she has the right kind of charisma or if girls like her because she has been pretty much the only pushed female wrestler who isn't portrayed as a bitch. But regardless, there is already a blueprint in booking a good kind of underdog (without being so much of a jobber people lose interest), it just requires the WWE creative team to be willing to get there with her.